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Sep 2023
1h 17m

20VC Roundtable: Is the VC Model Broken?...

Harry Stebbings
About this episode

Eric Paley is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world’s most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, The Trade Desk, Coupang and Airtable.

Mike Maples is one of the OGs of seed investing. As the Co-Founder of Floodgate, he has backed the likes of TwitchOkta, Lyft, Twitter and more.

Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds with a portfolio including Algolia, Pipedrive, Salesloft, TalkDesk, and RevenueCat to name a few.

In Today's Episode on Is the Venture Model Broken? :

  1. Is the classic seed model dead? Can seed funds play in a world of $25M valuations?
  2. Why is having a firm grasp of the present the best thing an early-stage investor can have?
  3. Why does Mike Maples believe no company with true product-market-fit has ever failed?
  4. Why does Eric Paley believe "go faster" is the worst startup advice?
  5. Why does Mike Maples believe there is a direct relationship between price and risk?
  6. Why does Mike Maples believe that outliers by their very nature are lower priced?
  7. Why does Eric Paley not focus on ownership? Why can it be dangerous?
  8. What are the biggest risks for founders raising at valuations that are too high?
  9. Why does Eric Paley believe we will have the biggest chasm between TVPI and DPI in the prior vintage of venture capital returns?
  10. Why does Eric believe the majority of SPACs were BS and great companies can always go public?
  11. Why does Jason believe that if multiples do not reflate, the venture model is broken?
  12. Why does Jason believe we will see the biggest hiring spree in tech next year?
  13. How has illiquidity allowed Eric Paley to make some of the best investment decisions?
  14. What is Mike Maples biggest lesson from selling Twitter stock early at $1BN?

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